Rebates on consumer products—specifically electronics—have become a popular marketing tool for enticing consumers (e.g., individuals, entities, etc.) into making purchases. Rebates can be very cost effective for rebate-offering business entities (e.g., retailers, manufacturers, etc.) because a significant percentage of consumers making rebate eligible purchases either do not claim the rebate at all or fail to meet the rebate sponsor's terms and conditions. In industry parlance, this is known as breakage. Additionally, a meaningful percentage of the consumers who do receive a rebate check fail to cash the check prior to it expiring. This is known in the industry as slippage. Due to the combination of breakage and slippage, the actual cost of offering a rebate is only a fraction of the rebate's face value. For this reason, rather than simply reducing the price of the product, an action that would impact revenue on each unit sold, manufacturers and retailers prefer to offer a rebate. This is evidenced by the increasing ubiquity of rebate programs in the market place.
Traditionally, rebate fulfillment is a long, time-consuming if not tedious manual process in which a consumer is required to fill out a rebate claim form and mail it along with necessary paper documents such as the store receipt and proof of purchase to a rebate processing center within a specified window of time. U.S. Pat. No. 6,847,935, issued to Solomon et al., offers a computer-aided system for processing product rebates. The system of Solomon et al. includes a networked rebate processing center which allows a consumer who purchased a rebate-qualifying product to fill out an online rebate request form through the rebate processing center's processing interface. After the rebate request is successfully processed, the consumer may be given several disbursement options (e.g., cash, gift certificate, manufacturer credit, etc.). Submitting the rebate request form to and receiving the disbursement options from the rebate processing center can be viewed as two separate transactions. The former can be initiated by the consumer electronically or by mail.
To maintain breakage and prevent fraudulent claims, the system of Solomon et al. requires the consumer to print and mail the completed rebate request form affixed with a receipt and a UPC symbol. Solomon et al. suggests that a secure technique could be used to verify the authenticity of a purchase, obviating the need for a paper transmittal. To provide opportunities for breakage in such a paperless rebate process thus envisioned, Solomon et al. envision that the system would maintain numerous post purchase requirements so that a consumer would still need to go through a myriad of processes to realize a rebate. Any number of steps may halt or suspend rebate processing to wait for further actions by the user (e.g., submission of verifying materials such as receipts or UPC symbols, etc.). The rebate processing center may terminate processing at points of breakage (e.g., failed communications, failure to meet the promotion requirements, failure to submit the verifying materials, etc.) without notifying the consumer of the status.
FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram representing a prior art rebate network and a system and method implementing the rebate network. In this example, a rebate system 100 is comprised of a rebate sponsor 110, a consumer 120, and a rebate processing center 130. Rebate sponsor 110 is representative of a manufacturer or retailer that offers rebate programs for the purchase of selective products. Consumer 120 may provide a payment 101 in exchange for a rebate-qualifying product 102 and a rebate form or instruction 103. Consumer 120 may be instructed to fill out a rebate claim 104. As exemplified in FIG. 1, consumer 120 may have a client computer 125 capable of communicating, through the World Wide Web 150, with a server computer 135 in a rebate network 140 that allows for the online submission of rebate claim 104. Rebate processing center 130 may be an independent company or part of rebate sponsor 110. In a typical rebate claim process, consumer 120 is required to mail in the rebate claim 104 and proof of purchase 105. After proof of purchase 105 is received and verified, rebate processing center 130 identifies disbursement options 107 that have been authorized by rebate sponsor 110 and generates presentation of disbursement options 106, which may be provided to consumer 120 via Web 150 after online submission of rebate claim 104 or when consumer 120 revisits the website of rebate processing center 130 and checks the status of rebate claim 104.
As described above, rebates have traditionally been a cost effective marketing tool for manufacturers and retailers (i.e., rebate sponsors) to entice consumers into making purchases on selected products. The cost-effectiveness mainly relies on breakage and slippage, which are not necessarily beneficial to consumers. Furthermore, the typical rebate claim process described above is inclusive of business entities that are part of a rebate program in the rebate network. Business entities outside of this rebate network (i.e., third parties) are not allowed to participate (e.g., cross-sell) in the rebate redemption process. There is a need for a rebate redemption process system and method which allows for cross-sell activities in a rebate network. Embodiments of the invention can address this need and more.